For the past 30 years the Saint Kirakos Armenian church in Diarbekir, Turkey did not hold mass nor offer any prayers. However, last sunday the church held mass under Archbishop Aram Ateshian to the numerous Armenians that came from all over Europe, Syria, and Turkey.
The Mayor of Diarbekir Osman Baydemir welcomed everyone that came, and said that Diarbekir was their town as well as it is his. This showed he wanted to promote the development, and the improvement of relations with the Armenians.
Between the years of 1915 to 1960 the Saint Kirakos Church was used as storage of arms. It later became a bank office, and nobody thought it would ever hold mass again. After, many years the church was in poor condition since the 16th century, but starting last year it finished being rebuilt. It cost about $2.5 million with 70% of the money raised by Armenians living in Istanbul, Turkey & the other 30% came from the Diarbekir Municipality.
A chairman of St. Kirakos Church Fund hoped for having a holy mass and offering prayers at least once or twice a year after the reconstruction was done.
Before 1915, Diarbekir was 1 out of 6 provinces of Western Armenia, and its territory of 37,000 km was larger than the territory of the Republic of Armenia that had a population of 260,000 while 105,000 of the population were Armenian. Today it is a Kurdish town, but has very little population of Armenian, Turks, or even Assyrians.
Many Turkish nationalists including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan do not support this process.
To see the article click:
http://www.armenianow.com/arts_and_culture/25518/lyturgy_armenian_church_diarbekir
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